Chapter Twenty-Seven: Who Says There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch?
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August 26, 2021
Dear Diary,
Whoever said there was no such thing as a free lunch did not live in California. Seriously. When I first heard that Governor Gavin Newsom had approved free lunches for 6.1 million students in California due to our budget surplus, it didn’t immediately dawn on me that this was something that could benefit my family. Having only ever sent the children to private schools, in fact, several tony private schools, I became accustomed to paying for every.single.freaking.thing. Snacks, lunches, supplies, books, and, to top it off, $5 tickets to attend your own flesh-and-blood’s holiday performances. These are just a few of the things which private schools have trained me to pay for without questioning.
But public school, Diary, public school is a whole new world! I mean, who knew that things like Chromebooks, hardcover textbooks, and workbooks alike, would just be handed out — gratis — in the most convenient way possible: delivered directly to my kids at school. I didn’t have to log into some website and type in 50 different SKU’s. I didn’t have to have the foresight to do this in June so the books would arrive before school started. I didn’t have to arrange for multiple boxes of books to be transported from our office (where they are most conveniently shipped), to our house. And then the kids’ school, only to have to contend with receiving them all back again at year end, when even used bookstores don’t want them.
Granted, we did struggle with clothes shopping for the first time in years, which is decidedly more complicated than uniform shopping, especially when your children have “opinions” on how they should dress. But, thankfully, we got a lot of it out of the way earlier in the summer when the children needed two weeks of camp clothing for their rehab stint. Given that we hadn’t purchased them any clothing for the nearly 18 months of semi-isolation, including shoes, this was no easy feat (pun intended). We actually reached rockbottom when I realized neither child had a pair of shoes which fit them well enough to even leave the house to go shoe shopping. That was a logistical challenge I would have never anticipated a few years back.
But clothing woes aside, so far, public school is this amazing daily reminder of our tax dollars at work! The ability to walk the children to school every day is such a blessing. It feels good for our health, good for our planet, and good for our time management. We can get so much more done when we aren’t bumper to bumper on the 405!
We are less than a week in, but, so far, the “new kids at school” are very happy. Olivia burst through the school gates after her first day, eager to tell me about how she had made a friend.
“Mom, there was this girl who had the cutest outfit on, but I was too shy to talk to her. Then, we were at snack time and she walked up to me and said, ‘Hi, I’m Clara! Wanna be friends?’ and I said, ‘Sure!’ and I told her that I really liked her outfit and we spent the whole day together and now we are best friends!”
How freaking adorable is that? I wish adults could make best friends like kids do. We should work on that.
But, back to the free lunch thing. Many thanks to Governor Newsom for putting our kids first and for keeping us safe throughout the pandemic. I know he had to make difficult choices and suffered immense criticism. I’m sure he wishes he hadn’t gone to French Laundry that night, but does he really deserve to be recalled over it? Especially when he’s up for reelection next freaking year. Anyone who supports this $276 million recall effort has to stop yammering about fiscal responsibility. Forever. This isn’t how things are supposed to work, is it?! If you hate the man that much, the simple, democratic solution is to just vote him out in 2022! Just don’t start messing with my kids’ free lunches.
In conclusion, dear reader, the public schools and their daily free lunches are wondrous things to be celebrated and endorsed. The Governess feels strongly that the $276 million chucked into the waste bin of this ridiculous recall election would have been better spent on more kids’ Chromebooks and quesadillas. And, since it is my actual birthday on September 14, I think I’ll wish for this stupid recall election to flame out, just like the candles on my birthday cake!
Sincerely,
Maya
The New Governess